Anellotech raises another $7M; biomass to aromatics
21 November 2015
Catalytic fast pyrolysis company Anellotech has received an equity investment of $7 million from a new, strategic investor. The new, multinational corporate investor joins existing partners, Axens, IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), Johnson Matthey, and other industry leaders.
Anellotech’s proprietary thermal catalytic biomass conversion technology (Bio-TCat) cost-competitively produces building-block aromatics, including paraxylene and benzene, from non-food biomass. The development of 100% bio-based aromatics will meet growing consumer demand for products and packaging made from sustainable sources.
The initial $7 million is the first tranche of a total of $10 million the Company plans to raise. The company expects to raise the remaining $3 million within the next few months.
The funding will be used for the development of the Bio-TCat process, including the installation of Anellotech’s new, fully-integrated development and testing facility (TCat-8), which will be operational in 2016. This 25 meter-tall unit will confirm the viability and suitability of the Bio-TCat process for scale up, and generate the data needed to design commercial plants using the technology, planned for the end of this decade.
The TCat-8 unit was jointly designed by Anellotech and its R&D partner IFPEN, and will use a novel catalyst under joint development by Anellotech and Johnson Matthey.
The Bio-TCat process efficiently and cost-competitively produces bio-based aromatics, including paraxylene, benzene, toluene and other xylenes (BTX), from non-food sources. BTX is used to make significant plastics, such as polyester (polyethylene terephthalate or “PET”), polystyrene, polyurethane, and nylon.
By using renewable and readily available materials, such as wood, sawdust, corn stover and bagasse, the Bio-TCat process is less expensive compared to processes that use sugar-based feedstock, and avoids competition with the food chain. And, unlike thermochemical approaches where bio-oil is an intermediate product, the requirement for extensive, costly amounts of hydrogen is not a fundamental aspect of the technology.
Anellotech’s process performs all process reactions in one fluid bed reactor in which biomass is thermally broken down and then catalytically converted into aromatics. As a result, these bio-based aromatics can be sold profitably against their identical, petroleum-derived counterparts.
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